Our World: Sunset salutation

David Albers/Staff
- Bala Vinyasa Yoga instructor Christine Miles demonstrates a pose while conducting a sunset yoga class near the beach at Delnor-Wiggins Pass State Park on Thursday, March 15, 2012, in North Naples.

Naples Daily News

As gusts of wind sway the tree branches above, yoga instructor Christine Miles guides two dozen students into tree pose. One by one, students stretch upward with varying success, balancing with the cabbage palms, sea grapes and pine trees surrounding them. Inhaling and exhaling in unison, their arms stretch skyward as the sun sinks before them into the Gulf of Mexico.

On this recent March evening, Miles leads the third installment of a free monthly sunset yoga session open to the public at the beach at Delnor-Wiggins Pass State Park.

The Friends of Delnor-Wiggins Pass State Park and Bala Vinyasa Yoga began collaborating to offer the free sunset yoga classes starting in January to provide a healthy community service while exposing more of the public to one of the area's assets of nature.

The location is a no-brainer for the yogis.

"You feel closer to nature, a part of nature. I am more at ease here than in the yoga studio," said Laura Collins, 49, of Fort Myers. "It's relaxing to watch the trees and the Gulf. It is harder to take it too serious out here."

The barrier island preserve in North Naples provides a setting that is just far enough off the grid to be ideal. Daily stress retreats as the class progresses.

"It's all about you. Your body," says Miles in a soft French-Canadian accent. "Yoga is freedom."

The calm surf and wind rustling through the trees above drown out the outside world in the seclusion as the group bends, flexes and breathes.

Miles keeps the pace between poses slowly and deliberately just as she would her classes in the studio.

After an hour, the class concludes with relaxation and a bow to the sun. The students are slow to gather their belongings. No one is in a hurry to leave. They linger together feeling centered and connected. Reveling in the location.

"You are in nature. What better place to do an exercise, a relaxation, than in nature?" said Naples resident Rhonda Brazina, 60. "This is probably as close to heaven as it gets."

For more information about the next sunset yoga class on April 19 at Delnor-Wiggins Pass State Park, visit www.delnorwiggins.org.